


The Blue Spirit: Year One

by calcliffbas



Series: White Lotus Zuko [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Batman Begins - Freeform, Coming of Age, Gen, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Order of the White Lotus, Origin Story, Pai Sho, The Blue Spirit - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29029698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcliffbas/pseuds/calcliffbas
Summary: “If you make yourself more than just a man – if you devote yourself to an ideal… you become something else entirely.”“Which is?”“A legend, Prince Zuko.”Or: The White Lotus help Zuko figure out what he's going to do with that blue theater mask.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: White Lotus Zuko [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983037
Comments: 41
Kudos: 84





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First off the bat (no pun intended), this isn’t meant to be taken as a legitimate backstory for Zuko in the time between ‘Seventy-two to nil’ and ‘No Reason You Can’t Do It’. This story is just a bit of fun, although it doesn’t contradict the main narrative. So if you want to imagine him taking a different journey to becoming the Blue Spirit in this AU, feel free!

It is probably safe to say that the first time Zuko goes out in his theater mask, things do not get off to a particularly auspicious start.

But it must also be said that Zuko has never cared for omens, or fortune, or luck. Or for thinking things through.

He’d had the vague idea that he was going to do something to hamper the Fire Army as they marched north from Qifeng to Ba Sing Se, but he hadn’t quite figured out _what_. He supposes that means that he doesn’t really have anyone to blame but himself for the rips and cuts along his black tunic, or the scorch masks on his theater mask. The Dark Water Spirit wasn’t his favorite character from _Love Amongst the Dragons_ , but he’d been on a tight schedule to sneak off the _Wani_ , go and spread a little chaos amongst the Fire Army battalion a few miles up ahead, and then sneak back before the end of Uncle Iroh’s music night, so he hadn’t really had the time to go and get a Dragon Emperor mask from the various merchants up and down Qifeng port.

Annoyingly, the one part of his evening that Zuko _did_ think through is the part that had most impeded him. There is something within Zuko, something rooted in his love for his country, that shrinks away from the thought of using his firebending to fight a Fire Nationer. These soldiers love and defend their nation – not Zuko’s nation, not now that he has been exiled – and so he had promised himself that he would not use his firebending when he fought them.

He knows better than most how long a burn takes to scar.

So Zuko has to drop his mask through his cabin’s porthole window first, and then heave himself in after it, wincing and letting out a muffled grunt as he topples onto the floor. Agni _damn_ it, he was pretty sure he’d cracked a rib when that last explosion had sent him crashing into a tree trunk –

“Nephew,” Uncle Iroh greets him, as if this was Uncle’s cabin and he had wandered in by mistake. “You've been gone a long time.”

_Shit_. This wasn’t in the plan.

Well, to be fair, very little of what has happened tonight had been in Zuko’s plan. He hadn’t planned on _getting discovered_ , _getting yelled at_ , _getting firebent at_ , _getting blasted into a tree_ – the list goes on and on.

Still, _getting caught by Uncle_ gets added to the list. Coincidentally, it also goes straight to the top of the list of events Zuko least wanted to happen tonight.

He decides right there and then that he _hates_ lists.

As all these frantic thoughts race through Zuko’s mind, Uncle only continues to sit on the floor, occasionally raising a cup of steaming tea to his lips to take a delicate sip. The only indications that he is in a highly emotional state are his narrowed golden eyes and the three lit candles in front of him on Zuko’s meditation mat. Zuko almost envies him his composure; it would have come in handy when he was getting swarmed by a dozen firebending soldiers intent on capturing and unmasking him.

Zuko has noticed that whenever Ensign Takahashi appears to be getting into trouble, she is able to escape Uncle’s wrath by simply brazening it out. Perhaps the same approach will work here.

“Yes, I have,” he states confidently, shrugging and leaning against his desk. He only _slightly_ misjudges the distance. He doesn’t _fall_ , but it’s more a stumble than a lean.

“You look very fashionable,” Uncle observes placidly. “Apart from the mud.”

…

The next morning, Zuko has braced himself for the full force of one of Uncle’s more disapproving _Looks_. Uncle hadn’t asked him about where he had gone, but Zuko knows word will soon reach the _Wani_ that someone in dark clothes and a blue mask has attacked the Fire Army a few miles north of Qifeng, and Zuko has learnt over the past year and a half that Uncle isn’t nearly as stupid as he once thought he was. He’ll put the pieces together, and then Zuko will be In For It.

He’s not sure whether Uncle’s got anything worse than the _You would really play the knotweed tile at_ this _particular stage of the game, Nephew?_ look, but he’s preparing himself to find out. He’s not prepared to find out that Uncle and Lieutenant Jee have apparently gone behind his back to plot a course for the Sun Island.

“We’re going to where the Sun Warriors used to live?” He asks dumbfoundedly, looking down at Uncle as he sits complacently on the deck. “ _Why?_ ”

Zuko doesn’t remember much about what his history tutors told him about the Sun Warriors. He’s pretty sure the Sun Island doesn’t actually count as part of the Fire Nation proper, so he won’t _technically_ be breaking the terms of his banishment, but they’ll have to pass through the Nation’s waters to get there, and why would Uncle want to do that? He knows the terms of Zuko’s banishment as well as Zuko does.

The whole _Nation_ knows the terms of his banishment, and most of the Earth Kingdom as well.

Uncle Iroh only continues to set Pai Sho tiles down on the board in a pattern that means very little to Zuko. “Were you aware that the ruins of their civilisation are still there, Nephew?”

Uncle’s question explains absolutely nothing to Zuko. They’ve already searched all four Air Temples; if they were going to find the Avatar amongst the ruins of a long-dead civilization, they would have found him by now. “No.”

“I thought it would be a nice spot to visit at this time of year.”

_Agni damn it_.

Of course that was the reason, Zuko thinks wearily to himself. Uncle just wants to go sight-seeing. A crumbling old relic looking for company, but he feels guilty as soon as he has the thought. Uncle is the most honorable man Zuko knows, and he deserves honor in return.

But even so!

“When did you decide this?” He asks weakly, grasping for some semblance of logic to what Uncle has just told him. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

“I met with Lieutenant Jee at the close of music night to discuss the next stage of our journey,” Uncle answers blithely. “Had you been there, Nephew, I am sure that your input would have been greatly valued, and your final decision as commander of the ship would of course have been abided by.”

_Bullshit_ , Zuko wants to say. He hadn’t been told anything about a meeting that was supposed to be happening last night. If this was Uncle’s underhanded way of making sure Zuko doesn’t go running off again without care for what may be happening in his absence, he’s picked a good way of doing it.

But Zuko can’t very well complain about not being at the meeting, because then Uncle will complain about him not being at music night, and then they’ll have to talk about where Zuko had been _instead_. And Uncle will definitely have a few words to say about that. If Uncle and Jee hadn’t been supposed to be having a meeting to discuss logistics, Zuko _definitely_ shouldn’t have been sneaking out to try and attack a Fire Army battalion in the middle of the night.

“I thought music night was for recreation?” He complains instead, folding his arms and turning towards the bow of the ship, which is now apparently heading for the mouth of the Gulf of Deng Hu. “Not for matters of ship policy!”

He sees Uncle incline his head out of the corner of his right eye. “It was a rather pleasant evening, Nephew. I am sorry you missed it.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” he mutters darkly. He’s pretty sure he _does_ , in fact, have cracked ribs from that explosion. And now his ship has been hijacked by his own Uncle, and they’re on their way to the Agni-damned _Sun Island_.

Why Uncle wants to visit the Sun Warriors’ ancient civilisation, Zuko cannot imagine. He can’t remember his tutor saying that tea-blending was a big part of the Sun Warriors’ culture, or anything like that.

“If you’re thinking of turning music night into _mutiny_ night on a regular basis, Uncle, I might have to make attending it a little more of a priority,” he grumbles.

“Whilst I am pleased that you feel so strongly about this, Prince Zuko, I am rather sorry that you apparently had more important matters than music night to attend to last night.”

Zuko scoffs. “Sorry for missing out on your little singalong, Uncle.”

“I did rather enjoy Lieutenant Jee’s moving rendition of ‘Don't Fall in Love with the Traveling Girl’,” Uncle admits almost absent-mindedly. Zuko isn’t sure whether it’s a cunning ploy to lull him into a false sense of security, or whether the old man really _is_ that dedicated to the arts. “And Cook Yoshida even deigned to give us a performance on the morin khuur.”

Zuko can’t remember Cook Yoshida _ever_ getting involved in music night, so he finds his interest piqued despite himself. “Was it worth the wait?”

Uncle chuckles as he pours himself another cup of tea from the set he has brought out on the deck with him. “It seems that eighteen months without performing have dulled Master Yoshida’s skills somewhat.”

He surprises Zuko by offering him the cup, and Zuko takes it reflexively.

“Thank you, Uncle,” he adds, just as his mother had always taught him.

“It is no trouble, Nephew,” the old man replies. He surveys Zuko over the rim of the cup he has poured for himself as he takes another drink.

“However,” he continues, lowering the cup to rest it on a plate without so much as a _clink_ , “Cook Yoshida’s performance last night did bring something to my attention.”

Zuko is instantly on guard. “I don’t care how bad Yoshida’s performance was, Uncle, but you’re not using it as an excuse to give me extra lessons on the tsungi horn –”

“Oh, no, Nephew,” Uncle shakes his head, which reassures him a little. “You know that I greatly value the music nights where you will grace us with your playing as well as your presence.”

That’s probably Uncle’s way of fitting in a sly dig at Zuko’s absence tonight, but Zuko doesn’t want to point it out, because that’ll lead to a whole load of awkward questions. And Zuko’s still terrible at lying, so his answers will probably be just as awkward.

_Um. I snuck out to attack a bunch of Fire Army soldiers. Uh, I don’t know why. I just knew I had to, okay? Yes, I focused on attacking their supplies. Um, because I didn’t want to firebend. No, I don’t know if I ruined their tea supplies, Uncle. War crimes? What the fuck does jasmine tea have to do with war crimes, Uncle?_

“Rather, Nephew,” Uncle continues, shaking him out of an increasingly ridiculous reverie, “Master Yoshida’s performance has made clear to me that talent will only take a man so far. What has been forgotten must be rediscovered.”

Zuko… has no idea what Uncle is on about. Is this about the tsungi horn, or about something else? Okay, so he’d forgotten the difference between _insam-cha_ and _sencha_ the other day, but he’d thought Uncle had been okay with receiving ginseng tea instead of _ryokucha_?

“You _were_ telling the truth when you said the ginseng tasted nice,” he begins warily, “Weren’t you, Uncle?”

Uncle blinks, and he looks momentarily confused, which Zuko thinks is only fair considering how bewildered _he_ feels right now. But then Uncle’s expression clears.

“I was indeed, Nephew,” he reassures him, and Zuko feels relief. “As I have said previously, your tea-brewing skills have come on _marvellously_ this past year. No, as a matter of fact, I was actually speaking of firebending.”

As ever when the subject of firebending is raised, Zuko is interested to learn more. “So what have the Sun Ruins got to do with firebending, Uncle?”

“On the Sun Island,” Uncle tells him, “There is a fire that never goes out. If you can carry it to the top of the mountain, you may find what you were looking for in the first place.”

Uncle takes another long sip of ginseng as he looks back at Zuko. His golden eyes give nothing away.

Just like when they play Pai Sho game, Zuko can’t understand Uncle’s cryptic words no matter how much he tries to puzzle out what the old man means. Even if the Avatar is hiding on the Sun Island, after a hundred years of war, he very much doubts the master of all four elements will come and find him if he just openly firebends in front of him. But Zuko’s not sure what else Uncle might be talking about.

“And what was I looking for?” He asks despite himself.

Uncle flips a knotweed tile over to neutralize it, before setting another knotweed tile on top of it. “Only you can know that.”

Zuko pretty sure that’s the complete opposite of a helpful answer, and it doesn’t escape his notice that Uncle hasn’t actually told him what, if anything, the Sun Ruins have do to with firebending. But if he starts asking Uncle about that, Uncle might start asking him about what he’d been doing last night. He sighs as he sits down opposite Uncle, and without a word, the two of them begin a new game of Pai Sho.

Uncle beats him with an infuriatingly passive combination of the wheel, the boat, and a white lotus tile, and Zuko knows the sneaky old man chose that completely unnecessary final tile _just_ to fuck with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ginseng tea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginseng_tea) is called _insam-cha_ in Korea, and [_sencha_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sencha) is a type of Japanese green tea.


	2. Chapter 2

Zuko leaves the Island of the Sun having realized the truth about firebending, but also the truth about his honor.

For eighteen months, he had carefully scraped back the fuzz of hair on his head every day, keeping his scalp shamefully bare. The phoenix tail that once marked him as royalty now marked him as _banished_ royalty, and that made all the difference in the world. But now, when the wind picks up, Zuko doesn’t feel the strands of his topknot tickling his skull anymore. His head is bare, and the weight of guilt has been lifted.

Much as the dragons have shown Zuko that the Fire Nation has lost sight of the true meaning of firebending, the Sun Warriors have shown him that the Nation has lost sight of what honor truly was. Although it is a hard thing for Zuko to learn, he has learnt more painful lessons in the past. But if meeting the original firebending masters tests Zuko’s faith in his Nation, meeting Song nearly shatters it.

It takes three days to reach the Yang province, where the former admiral Jeong Jeong has set up his camp, but in order to do so, Zuko and Uncle Iroh must cross Shangqiu country, where the Fire Nation overcame the dogged resistance of the Earth Kingdom army in the Third Wei Xinhai Campaign. The _Wani_ is docked at Xuzhou port, so in order to avoid passing through Fire Nation colony land and breaking the terms of Zuko’s banishment, they’ll need to head west for a day before winding north-by-northeast until they reach the Deserter’s camp.

Easy, Zuko thinks. All you have to do is go west for a day, and not confuse north-by-northeast with east-by-northeast. That’s easy enough, right?

And it is, by and large. The problem is that Uncle can’t go without tea for a day, and he ends up confusing white dragon bush and white jade plant and fucking _poisoning himself_.

By the time Zuko drags him into a little village and bundles him into a hospital, the old man’s breath is rattling in his throat and his skin has turned as grey as his beard. He’s so grateful to the young woman who treats Uncle and relieves his labored breathing that he nearly throws himself into a kowtow at her feet when she reassures him that Uncle will live.

“You two must not be from around here,” she speculates with a wry smile on her face as she wrings out a damp cloth. “We know better than to touch the white jade, much less make it into tea and drink it.”

Uncle’s face is a mass of red rashes, his yellow eyes only just visible through the swelling. As he lifts a hand to scratch at his rash, the healer lightly smacks his hand. He chuckles sheepishly, and _fucking right_ he should be embarrassed after what he’s just put Zuko through.

“Whoops,” he says, and all Zuko’s anxious worry and desperate concern is replaced in an instant by a what he can only describe as exasperated fondness. It won’t stop him from throwing Uncle’s white lotus tile away in a fit of pique, but it’s better than setting the entire board on fire.

The healer chuckles along with Uncle as she busies herself with an intimidating display of jars and bowls. “So, where are you traveling from?”

Now, even Zuko can tell that this is one of those questions where the honest answer might not be the best one. _We’re travelling from Xuzhou, but we’re taking the long route north because I’m the banished Prince of the Fire Nation_ … yeah, that might not be the safest thing to say when they’re this deep in the Earth Kingdom so soon after Wei Xinhai.

“Yes!” He coughs, scrambling to his feet. “We’re travelers!”

The woman gives him a smile as she carefully bathes Uncle’s hand. “Do you have names?”

“Names?” Zuko tries to laugh it off, but it comes out as more of a panicked giggle. “Of course we have names!”

Yeah, of course they have names! Earth Kingdom names! Earth Kingdom names for Zuko and Uncle. Earth Kingdom names to identify themselves with. Because when you identify yourself in the Earth Kingdom, you need a nice, normal Earth Kingdom name.

Zuko’s got absolutely no idea what a nice, normal Earth Kingdom name might be. He’s also not entirely sure whether _name_ is even a word anymore.

_Name_. _Naem_. _Nayyyyym_.

“I'm Lee!” He asserts, substituting competence for confidence. “And this is my Uncle Mushi!”

He knows as soon as he says it that _Mushi_ is as unlike a nice, normal Earth Kingdom name as he could possibly have picked. He might as well have called Uncle _Ginseng_. The old man gives him an angry look, but doesn’t contradict him. After what he’s put Zuko through today, Zuko thinks he’s got _no_ room to point fingers and complain about dumb decisions.

“Yes, my nephew was named after his father,” Uncle says conversationally, as the healer spreads an ointment over his inflamed skin. “So we just call him Junior.”

Zuko silently promises the sneaky old man that he’s going to wind up with assam in his teapot. That’ll wipe the smirk off his face.

“Mushi and Junior,” the healer repeats their two nice, normal Earth Kingdom names. If she sounds less than convinced, Zuko doesn’t blame her in the slightest.

She introduces herself as Song, and invites the two travelers – the two nice, normal Earth Kingdom travelers – to stay awhile and have a meal with her and her mother. Zuko is about to regretfully decline when Uncle says they would _love_ to stay for dinner. It’s at this point that Zuko swears by the copy of the _Hyakunin Isshu_ his mother gave him that he’s going to make sure the old man has nothing to drink except cold assam for a _week_.

Still, it’s been a while since he’s had roast duck, so at least he’ll get something out of the evening. But he regrets not declining even more once he sits down to dinner with Song and her mother, and he hears about what the Fire Nation has done to them.

Zuko had been told that the war was the Nation’s way of bringing Agni’s light to those who needed it – that fire was the superior element, and that the war was their way of sharing their greatness with the rest of the world. But before the Fire Army had come to Song’s village, she had had a father. Their village had had farms, and families had had their menfolk. Now, in fairness, Zuko had been a bit preoccupied with getting Uncle to a doctor as quickly as possible, but he can’t remember having seen any farms around in the area.

He wonders if this is what greatness is supposed to look like.

“When I was a little girl, the Fire Nation raided our farming village,” Song relays the details with a practiced cadence. Zuko knows from a whole lot of personal experience that if you say the words often enough, they seem to become less about you and more about the story, but that doesn’t stop the hollow ache of the remembered pain.

_I was lucky to be born. Everything always came easy to my sister. Everything my mother did, she did to protect me._

“All the men were taken away,” Song continues. “That was the last time I saw my father.”

“I haven't seen my father in many years,” Zuko offers quietly. He isn’t quite sure what makes him say it, but there’s something about the look on Song’s face that makes him want to reassure her that they at least have something in common.

“Oh,” Song seems as surprised as he is that he has willingly volunteered that information. “Is he fighting in the War?”

Zuko hesitates, and he feels his right eye give an involuntary twitch. If his left eye reacts, he can’t feel it. He can’t feel any hollow ache, or any remembered pain. He hasn’t said these words out loud, but they still roll around his head with the same rhythmic intonation as the others.

_I always wanted my father to put his hand on my shoulder, but instead, he set my face on fire_.

“Yeah.” He clears his throat as he concentrates on slowly lowering his plate to the table and neatly setting his chopsticks on the side. “Something like that.”

In the ensuing awkward silence, Uncle redeems himself partially for his previous idiotic stunt with his stupid forest plants by piping up and telling Song’s mother just how excellent her roast duck is. He’s telling the truth about the tender meat and the tasty sauce, but he’s got a twinkle in his eye that puts Zuko _right_ off the rest of his potatoes, and he takes the opportunity to abscond from the table and go and sit alone on the front porch with his thoughts.

This is a farming village. But the Fire Army isn’t supposed to attack civilians. It would be dishonorable to attack those who can’t defend themselves. But Song’s father was taken away from her by the Fire Nation.

_Zuko’s_ father has told him that his honor depends on what he does. And that he can only restore his honor by his deeds. But he was exiled for doing an honorable thing, and the Fire Lord doesn’t always do the honorable thing.

The Fire Lord. The Fire Nation. Song’s father. The facts are there, but they don’t make sense.

Zuko knows, after what he learnt at the Island of the Sun, that the Fire Nation has lost its way. He had – he had _hoped_ , but it seems like he has to accept the truth. The war is wrong, because the Nation acts wrongfully. Zuko has learnt that honor depends upon doing the right thing, but if the Fire Nation doesn’t do the right thing, then the Fire Nation has lost its honor.

There is no amount of practice and repetition that will make this knowledge sit comfortably with him.

Song knocks lightly on the porch railing. “Can I join you?” She asks, giving him a small smile.

Zuko doesn’t _really_ want company, but there’s no real way for him to refuse the woman who saved Uncle’s life, especially not in her own home. So he makes a noncommittal gesture that doesn’t necessarily mean _no_ , and she comes to sit beside him. He’s a little wary of anyone sitting on his left, where he can’t quite see as well out of the slightly blurred corner of his permanently narrowed eye.

“I know what you've been through,” Song begins softly, looking at him with something in her eyes that might be _gentleness_. It’s hard to see on his left. “We've all been through it. The Fire Nation has hurt you.”

She reaches out –

Zuko doesn’t realize that he’s moved until he’s holding her wrist in his hand, keeping her well away from _his face_.

Slowly, he pushes her hand away. After a moment, he forces himself to straighten out his fingers and release his hold on her arm.

It’s not the Fire Nation that’s hurt him. It’s his father. But the Fire Nation took Song’s father away from her.

He’s so _confused_ , and so he does not reply.

But Song does not seem to take his sullen silence personally. Instead, she simply nods and lowers her arm. But instead of placing her hand in her lap again, she shifts so she can pull up the leg of her pants.

“It's okay,” she tells Zuko quietly. “They've hurt me, too.”

Again, Zuko does not reply. But this time, he cannot. Bile rises in his throat, and he has to choke it back down.

The burns on Song’s legs shine silver in the moonlight. She is perhaps only a few years older than Zuko, but he knows that just because the wound has scarred over doesn’t mean the flames weren’t agony on the flesh.

She had said that she had been a little girl when the Fire Nation had raided her farming village.

_It is wrong to burn a child_.

Zuko’s father doesn’t always do the right thing. But Zuko feels his inner fire turn cold as he realizes that his Nation doesn’t always do the right thing, either.

_The Fire Nation is without honor_ , he realizes numbly. And if the Nation is without honor, what are they fighting for?

What the fuck is _Zuko_ even fighting for, if his Nation is without honor?

After he and Uncle Iroh bid Song and her mother goodbye, they set off on two ostrich-horses that Uncle bought and paid for, not with copper but with gold. Zuko is quiet as he tries to sort through his thoughts. Uncle is quiet as he walks beside him, and he is reminded of what Uncle Iroh has already told him: that when he first came to doubt the righteousness of the war, it took him a long time to come to understand that he could not rely only on fire to light his path.

Zuko has already realized that the best thing for the Nation is peace, but it is not just the Nation that needs the war to end. How many young girls in the Earth Kingdom have lost their fathers? How many fathers have lost their beloved sons? How many cousins have been buried far from home?

“We have to stop the fighting,” he begins quietly. “Don’t we, Uncle?”

They walk on in the moonlight for a little longer. Zuko’s pretty sure Uncle heard him, but a year and a half on the _Wani_ has taught him that sometimes he needs to be patient and wait for Uncle to answer him. But when Uncle eventually speaks, he answers with familiar words.

He’s said them before, and Zuko does not forget his lessons.

“To have faith in your principles means you must never compromise on them.” His voice is heavy, but his steps do not falter. “So yes, Prince Zuko. We do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [Yang province](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Earth_Kingdom#List_of_known_territorial_divisions) is a territory in the Earth Kingdom. Shangqiu and Xuzhou are real-life places in China I took from quick Wikipedia searches.
> 
> Zuko’s name. [Kuzco’s poison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir0GoJyg8NA).
> 
> When did Uncle say those words before? Find out in Book 2: Earth...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If some of the dialogue from the first part of this chapter seems familiar, it’s because it features in Zuko’s meditations in Chapter 7 of ‘No Reason You Can’t Do It’.

Zuko doesn’t quite know how to feel the first time he comes face to face with Master Jeong Jeong. His conversations with Uncle over the past few weeks and months, and now the memory of Song and her mother, have helped Zuko realize that the war must be stopped, and visiting the Sun Warriors and learning from the original firebenders has helped him see that the best thing for the Fire Nation is peace, but he is still uneasy about meeting the Deserter.

It isn’t because he abandoned the Great March of Civilization and left behind the Fire Lord’s war. It is because the Deserter, almost by definition, gave up without a fight.

Such a thing is antithetical to Zuko’s entire worldview, and so when he meets the former admiral, he is almost surprised to see a thickset man with a severe frown and dark amber eyes. If it hadn’t been unspeakably disrespectful, Zuko would have wanted to ask him _why_ he had deserted. If he wanted to end the war, why wouldn’t he fight to that end?

But Zuko has learnt respect, or at least the beginnings of it, and so he does not speak. Instead, he waits for Jeong Jeong to speak. When he eventually breaks the silence, his words set Zuko instantly on edge.

“I would say that it is an honor to meet a Prince of our Nation.” His voice is gruff and stern. “But perhaps it is too soon to say such a thing to you, son of Ozai.”

Immediately, Zuko is wary of the Deserter. “You know who I am?”

“The world is too small for someone like Prince Zuko to disappear,” Jeong Jeong replies, “No matter how deep he chooses to sink.”

Zuko is tempted to point out that he could say the same thing about former Admiral Jeong Jeong, but that probably won’t make the firebending master any more likely to teach him. And that’s why he’s here, and Zuko will not be distracted from his goal.

Uncle has told him that Jeong Jeong was an ally, but Zuko is painfully aware that news of his disgrace has travelled far and wide. Even now that Zuko has severed his topknot and left his scalp brutally exposed, Jeong Jeong is well within his rights to refuse to teach the banished prince. Zuko’s never been very good with Uncle’s proverbs, but he _thinks_ he remembers Uncle saying something about… how you can catch more ant-flies with vinegar than with honey? Is that how it goes?

 _Whatever_ , he decides annoyedly. It’s something to do with how being polite works better than being a dick, that’s the main point.

“Master Jeong Jeong,” he begins, kneeling and bowing prostrate before a man who had been lauded as one of the greatest firebenders the Nation had ever witnessed, before he had witnessed what the Nation’s own greatness had become. “I am Zuko, son of Ursa, and I seek a master to teach me firebending. I have learnt much, yet I still have much to learn. Will you take me on as your student?”

Zuko thinks he’d done a pretty good job of coming up with that little speech. It’s assured without being arrogant, and confident without being complacent. But it’s also unassuming, polite, and respectful.

It becomes clear when Master Jeong Jeong rejects Zuko’s petition, however, that the Deserter is none of these things.

“You are a boy,” he answers scornfully. “You are no soldier. I have fought more battles than you have seen winters. Why should I teach you, when you still have much to learn?”

And, well, to be fair, that’s a perfectly valid question. Were Zuko the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, and Jeong Jeong a citizen of the Nation, he could simply tell the master that he, the superior, wished for the subject to teach him, and Jeong Jeong would be honor-bound to oblige his Prince. But now, as one is banished and the other a traitor, honor counts for very little, as Jeong Jeong’s early rebuke made clear.

Well, it might have been an insult. It might just have been a joke. Growing up with Azula, Zuko’s never been quite sure of the difference.

The only way Zuko will be able to convince Jeong Jeong to train him will be if he somehow convinces Jeong Jeong that he’s worth the effort, and he’s never been a particularly charming or charismatic person. But he has _always_ been someone who keeps fighting, even though it’s hard.

“Master,” he repeats himself, grounding himself in his purpose here. “My uncle tells me that it is important to draw wisdom from many different places.”

Jeong Jeong might have looked serious to start with, but as he purses his lips and narrows his eyes, he looks downright severe.

“A deserter’s camp in the Earth Kingdom is as different a place to the Royal Palace as you might find,” he begins very deliberately. “And I would not teach you when you were the Fire Lord’s son, Prince of the Nation. Why would I teach you now?”

When Uncle Iroh had taken Zuko to the Sun Warriors, they had asked Uncle why they should allow Zuko the honor of learning from the masters, Ran and Shaw. Uncle had stated, with a confidence Zuko had wished he could feel, that Zuko was far more deserving than he was of knowing the truth of firebending.

“Zuko has a pure and honorable heart,” Uncle had said, “And he seeks only to do the right thing. Grant him the knowledge of the truth of firebending, so that that same truth might one day be shared again with our homeland.”

Zuko isn’t sure whether he will ever return to his homeland, but he thinks that if what Uncle had said was good enough for actual, real-life _dragons_ , it should be good enough for some grumpy old bastard living by the side of a river.

“Teach me for my uncle, Master Jeong Jeong,” he appeals again to the old master. “And for our nation.”

Apparently, this is _not_ good enough for the grumpy old bastard. Zuko is strangely unsurprised.

“ _Our_ nation?” Jeong Jeong repeats, his mouth contorting like he has bitten into a lemon and then washed it down with assam. “The Fire Nation is without honor, boy. It fights an endless war that cannot be won, lost in hatred and drunk on blood.”

Perhaps this is why Jeong Jeong deserted the Army. After seeing what the Nation has done to Song, Zuko can understand the former admiral’s reasoning. The Nation has lost its way, it has lost its honor, and it loses more and more of its children to the war every day. The best thing for the Fire Nation is peace, and as long as the war goes on, with more soldiers dead and wounded, more families ripped apart, more Uncles left to mourn Cousin Lu Tens…

Jeong Jeong is right. The war must be stopped. Zuko doesn’t know how to accomplish that, but he knows he has to _try_.

“I left behind the senseless violence,” Jeong Jeong continues bitterly, shaking his head. Zuko isn’t sure whether he’s criticizing the senseless violence, or Zuko, or even himself. “I am a stranger to my homeland, and _you_ are banished. We have no nation to call our own.”

“Just because you’re without honor doesn’t mean you won’t ever get it back, Master.”

Zuko isn’t sure where the words come from, but the way they make his inner fire burn hotter and brighter make him feel that they have sprung from somewhere deep inside himself. Somewhere concerned with greater things, like _duty_ and _honor_ and _Uncle_. He may be an exiled failure, he may be a banished disgrace, but Zuko will not die dishonored. But he doesn’t know how to explain all this to Jeong Jeong, who _chose_ to leave the Nation and his honor behind. And Jeong Jeong is speaking anyway, so it’s not like he’ll get the chance to ask.

“There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare, yet the Fire Lord fights a war that has continued for a century. He favors Zhao’s violence and the butcher, Bujing.”

Jeong Jeong is looking at Zuko very closely, and Zuko wonders what he sees. Does he see Zuko, or does he see the Fire Lord’s son?

“You opposed Bujing in the Fire Lord’s war council,” the Deserter says deliberately.

Zuko swallows. He’s still getting used to the way the phantom weight of his phoenix tail seems to brush against his shaven scalp. Every so often, he will reach up to run his hand through the Agni-damned ponytail, only to remember that he has left that mark of dishonor behind.

He cannot leave his other mark behind.

“I did,” he agrees, looking Jeong Jeong in the eye and doing his best not to turn the left side of his face away.

“You spoke out against the madness,” Jeong Jeong pronounces.

There is something like approval in his eyes, which Zuko feels distinctly uncomfortable about. Whilst he had done the honorable thing in speaking out against Bujing’s awful plan, Zuko has come to realize that perhaps the most awful thing about that whole awful day had been that a thirteen-year-old boy had been the only person in the room who had been honorable enough to speak out against the certain death of an entire division.

It is an uncomfortable thing to realize that honor is so rare in the Fire Nation these days. Now that Zuko has been banished, he worries that it might be a little rarer. But that sounds a bit arrogant, and Zuko does _try_ to be humble.

And he has a feeling, as Master Jeong Jeong tells him that he will train him, that he’ll be learning a lot about humility in the near future.

…

Zuko’s first training session, as it turns out, is not an exercise in humility so much as _humiliation_. Jeong Jeong is caustic and harsh, and every backhanded compliment is quickly buried under a dozen criticisms and demands for Zuko to improve.

“Breathe!”

“Widen your stance!”

“Do not burn the leaf, foolish boy!”

Zuko’s got no idea how Uncle, who once put Ensign Takahashi on bilge duty for a week when he caught her swearing by _Agni’s saggy left_ – well, anyway, Zuko’s got no idea how Uncle and Jeong Jeong became allies, let alone _friends_. But Jeong Jeong’s criticisms give Zuko attainable goals to work towards, so he can endure them well enough whilst he learns firebending from the master.

Or at least, he _would_ , if he could firebend in the first place.

Zuko has noticed something worrying about his bending in the past few weeks – since he met with Uncle, since he met the dragons, since he met Song. It’s become weaker. Where once he could train for hours, forcing great gouts of flame and intense heat from his hands and feet, now he struggles to cause a _candle_ to burn any brighter, and none of Jeong Jeong’s shouted directions seem to be fixing it.

It’s like he’s seven years old again.

Azula had started bending at _three_. She’d clapped her hands to make sparks, and Zuko had needed to endure another two years of desperation before he could bend by _accident_. Seven years old, and he had only been able to figure out he was a firebender because he’d sneezed and set a curtain on fire.

When Azula was eleven, her fire turned blue. When Zuko had been eleven, he’d still been stuck on how to move into the fourth form extended of Dove-Swallow Landing on a Branch without falling on his fucking face.

Zuko has spent years mastering the basics, and now he can’t even do those.

_Fuck!_

He grunts with effort, jabbing his whole fist forward. An orange flame flickers into life, only to die before it even reaches the wick.

He can feel Jeong Jeong’s eyes upon him, and he wants to set this whole fucking hut – this _hovel_ – on fire, but he doubts he’ll even be able to make _smoke_.

“Your stance must be wider if you are to fill your lungs,” Jeong Jeong criticizes him sternly. “Firebending comes from the breath! You are not concentrating on your breathing!”

“I’ve heard all this before, Master,” Zuko mutters, resisting the urge to punch the _stupid_ candle. It’ll just get wax everywhere. Just like that time he accidentally blew a candle up. Back when he was _eight_.

Fucking _basics_. He was learning them at eight, he was learning them _again_ at thirteen – Agni’s _sake_ , is he destined to just keep getting sent back to where he started every couple of years?

“And you will hear it again,” Jeong Jeong is undeterred. “Until you demonstrate that you can breath properly –”

“It’s not about the fucking breathing, Master!” Zuko snaps back angrily. “My bending’s _gone!_ ”

Jeong Jeong sucks in a harsh breath. “You _dare_ to speak to your master like that –”

“Don’t tell your _Prince_ how he can and can’t speak!”

“Silence, boy!” The old man is raising his voice now. “You are not my Prince any longer!”

Now, Zuko knows Jeong Jeong could have meant that in a multitude of ways, not all of which are necessarily disrespectful. But he is too angry to be as charitable as he had been when the old man had spoken about _honor_ at their introduction. He won’t let this perceived insult slide.

“Oh, right,” he seethes. “Because you _left_ , didn’t you, Jeong Jeong? You fucking _left_ , like a coward –”

“Watch your mouth!” Jeong Jeong’s eyes flash dangerously, but Zuko _can’t bend_.

“It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it?!” He yells. “I’m stuck here in this _dump_ because I didn’t watch my fucking mouth! I didn’t get to leave like you did, old man! I was _banished!_ ”

His voice cracks on the last word, and that’s the final straw. He forces his way out of Jeong Jeong’s hut before the _coward – traitor – Deserter_ can respond.

…

Zuko is sitting outside the camp at a fire he made from spark rocks when Jeong Jeong finds him again, several hours later. The old man says nothing as he hands Zuko a plate of Komodo chicken and noodles without any sauce.

Zuko eats. It’s the polite thing to do, and he tries to remember his mother however he can.

Well, there’s that, and there’s also the more pragmatic reason that his body needs the protein. He does not regret how he spent his day, but he has the suspicion the regret will come when he wakes up tomorrow morning. He has put his body through a great deal today.

Uncle keeps telling him that firebending comes from the breath, not from the muscles, but if Zuko can’t _bend_ , he’ll at least do something else. That’s why he had stowed his blue theater mask in his tunic and stormed off into the woods; so he could go and _do_ something. He had been going to – to –

To…

Alright, okay, so he hadn’t had any idea what he had set off to do. But he’d needed to do _something_. And when he’d seen that band of thugs attacking that young couple – attacking a pregnant woman, no less – he’d found something to do.

Nobody else had been around to stop them, and they’d needed to be stopped, but _seriously_ , for Agni’s sakes, Zuko hadn’t had any idea that getting a bola to the back would be _that_ painful. First it was cracked ribs, now it’s a tender spot just to the left of his spine that will almost certainly bruise. He’s not sure whether he’ll sleep on his front or his back tonight, but either way, he can’t see it being painless.

The first time Zuko went out in that mask, he hadn’t firebent because he couldn’t bring himself to use fire against the Nation. This is the second time he’s gone out, and this time he didn’t firebend because he _couldn’t_. Either way, on both occasions he was left relying on his fists and his wits, and the dull pain he feels when he breathes too deeply tells him exactly how bad an idea that had been.

“You have returned, then.”

Zuko bites his lip, but it would be disrespectful to ignore his master as he sits down next to him in front of the fire. “I have, Master Jeong Jeong.”

“Perhaps you have returned to your senses too, hm?”

Then again, Zuko supposes that he had been a little bit disrespectful when he had basically told his master to _fuck off_. “I’m sorry, Master. I…”

_I’m sorry I spoke out of turn. I meant you no disrespect._

“I was angry,” he says instead, exchanging a lie for the truth. “And I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

“Your anger gives you great power,” the Deserter says quietly. “But if you let it, it will destroy you. As it almost did me.”

This brings Zuko up short.

So far, his new firebending master has been nothing more than a grumpy old bastard who is obsessed with deep breaths and leaves. He’s nothing like Master Kobayashi, who was the Crown Prince’s firebending tutor in another lifetime. Zuko knows nothing about the Deserter but for what Uncle Iroh has told him, and Uncle hasn’t told him much of _anything_. This is the first piece of information Jeong Jeong has volunteered about himself.

“What stopped it?” Zuko asks, trying to pitch his voice loud enough to be heard over the sputtering fire, but not so loudly that he seems overeager.

“It did not stop,” Jeong Jeong’s voice is quiet in the dark night. “Anger, like fire, burns as long as there is a source. But the longer my anger burned, the more tired I became. Eventually, I could burn no longer.”

Zuko remembers what it is to burn with anger. He had raged against the world as he searched the world for the Avatar, channeling all his hatred into a singular cause. To capture the Avatar. To regain his honor. To return home. But now, he has found that he can burn no longer. He has not lost his honor. Finding the Avatar won’t solve anything. His home is without honor.

Zuko has come to the end of himself, as it sounded like Jeong Jeong once did. His anger hasn’t _stopped_ , it’s just… burned itself out. Fire is life, but Zuko cannot return to his old life. He must make a new one somehow, but where can he go?

“Master?” He asks cautiously. “When you… when you gave up your anger. What did you do then?”

“I went around the world.” Jeong Jeong’s tawny eyes are distant in the firelight. “Searched in all the shadows. But what I could not find in the darkness, I found in the light. Fire refines the darkness in our own souls, and yet… what remains is as corrupted as what was burnt away.”

After Ran and Shaw had read Zuko’s heart, his soul, and his ancestry, Uncle had told Zuko of his birthright, and his family’s complicated history. Evil and good are always at war inside him; it is his nature, his legacy. Zuko is trying to choose _good_ , but if what Jeong Jeong is saying is true, it seems like the Deserter doesn’t believe people can change for the better.

When he remembers his mother’s last words, Zuko isn’t sure whether he wants to change. But he knows that he’s not going to give up trying to choose good. If Jeong Jeong doubts himself, that’s fine – Zuko doubts himself constantly. But Zuko won’t let the former admiral doubt _him_ , and he’ll prove him wrong every day if he has to.

He breathes in slowly. He holds it. He breathes out slowly. He pauses.

He can feel his heartbeat speed up as he pays closer attention to it, so he tries to concentrate on filling his lungs with air like Uncle always taught him – in for four, hold for four, out for four, pause for four. As he loses himself in the rhythm, he resists the temptation to open his eyes and see what effect his meditation is having upon the fire in front of him.

 _Fire is life_ , he reminds himself of what Ran and Shaw have told him _. It is your drive. It is your purpose. It is your passion_.

If Zuko’s firebending is gone, it must be because his drive has gone. His purpose, his passion – for the past eighteen months, he has only sought the Avatar. He has been desperate to regain his honor. But now that Uncle has helped him see that he had never _lost_ his honor… and Ran and Shaw have helped him see that firebending comes not just from the breath, but from the _spirit_ …

He needs a new source of firebending, he realizes. He doesn’t want to rely on hate and anger anymore. He doesn’t want to be defined by these things. So what _does_ he want to define him?

 _No_. No, that’s not it. He’s got it the wrong way round.

What has defined him these past few years? The same thing that has always defined him.

He makes his choice, and breathes.

The small of his back still hurts when his lungs expand, but he doesn’t regret it. His exhale might be somewhat pained, but it settles him somehow. Somebody had needed to stop those men, and there hadn’t been anybody else around to do it. It had been the right thing to do.

The _honorable_ thing to do.

He breathes in.

“Better.”

Jeong Jeong’s voice almost sounds approving, but Zuko knows that’s probably just his imagination. But he knows he’s not imagining the way his inner fire is burning a little more brightly now.


	4. Chapter 4

“The White Lotus has always been about philosophy, and beauty, and truth,” Jeong Jeong explains to Zuko as they sit by the side of the river. “Our duty is to serve true justice.”

Zuko frowns. Uncle has told him a little – only a _little_ , mind – of what the Order of the White Lotus stands for, and he never mentioned _justice_. He’s mostly just talked about how the four nations have more in common than they realize, and about how philosophy, beauty, truth, and other things should transcend the arbitrary boundaries of nations.

Zuko’s got a sneaking suspicion the _other things_ Uncle was talking about were just ginseng and oolong, but he’s not about to get into a discussion with _Jeong Jeong_ , of all people, about _tea_ , of all things.

“Uncle told me that the White Lotus is about harmony and balance,” he ventures uncertainly.

“Justice is harmony,” Jeong Jeong replies in a matter-of-fact tone. “Justice is balance.”

“How?” Zuko asks confusedly. “Isn’t justice about making stuff right when it goes wrong?”

“When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural,” Jeong Jeong says coolly. “A wildfire is neither righteous nor evil. It is only impartial justice.”

Zuko thinks about Jeong Jeong’s words as he watches a fire ferret try and grab a turtleduck out of the water. It almost overbalances as it tries to swipe at its target without toppling into the water, but with a squawk and a few flurried flaps of its wings, the turtleduck scrambles to safety a little further out on the water. The disappointed fire ferret goes on its way, and after a few moments of frantic paddling, the turtleduck clicks its beak and seems to relax. Zuko knows he should probably support the fire ferret, what with a name like that, but he’s quite happy with how the scene has unfolded. He’s always had a soft spot for turtleducks.

He isn’t quite sure what Jeong Jeong means – he has always thought of justice as some way to set right a wrong. Like, for Zuko, justice is when there aren’t any harmonies on the Pai Sho board, and then you play the wheel tile, and it rotates all adjacent tiles one space along. It shifts things into harmony.

He’s well aware that if he’s thinking of grand, abstract concepts like _justice_ in terms of how they look on a Pai Sho board, he’s probably been spending a bit _too_ much time listening to Uncle. But that’s not the _point_ of what he’s saying. The _point_ is that playing the wheel tile is an intentional attempt at moving from wrongness to rightness.

But from what Jeong Jeong is saying harmony is, it sounds like… well, it sounds like if you play the White Lotus Gambit. Everything is flipped upside down, and what’s left is just like it was before, only _different_. A forest fire might burn a forest down, but when the fire dies away, the landscape is still there. It’s just different than it was before.

And unless you’re Uncle, nobody _ever_ manages to win a game with just one White Lotus Gambit. So maybe you can’t shift everything from wrongness to rightness in just one move.

“Is justice a process?” Zuko asks slowly. “Like… you can set some things right today, but other things have to be set right later, too?”

Jeong Jeong gives a stiff nod that inclines his head approximately three degrees. Zuko’s fast getting the impression that that’s the best he’s ever going to get from his new master.

“The balance is not an idle thing,” the former admiral explains. “The balance does not _stay_ – it is in constant motion, as is your bending. A fire is brighter when there is more wood to burn, but when what is left is only embers, we must seek out more fuel for the fire. The fire must be maintained. The balance must be served.”

Zuko doesn’t quite know what to do with that. He _thinks_ he knows what Jeong Jeong means… but he’s also got no fucking clue what the old man’s talking about.

It must show in his expression, because Jeong Jeong shakes his head and grumbles under his breath. “One hundred fire fists, as you ponder upon the meaning of true justice.”

“What the fu – Master, are you _serious?_ ”

“Are you deaf as well as foolish, boy? Two hundred!”

…

When Uncle Iroh had taken Zuko to meet the Sun Warriors, they had made him carry a flame from the Eternal Flame up a mountain to meet the original firebenders before he was taught the true meaning of firebending. Ran and Shaw had showed him that fire is life – it is living, every candle a heartbeat; every wildfire a new beginning as well as the death of the old.

Jeong Jeong’s training is not quite so exhilarating. Yesterday, the Deserter made Zuko walk up a hill, making it clear that he expected Zuko to reach the top in no less than twenty-five minutes, but no more than twenty-seven. Zuko suspects that the exercise had something to do with keeping his breathing even and his pace steady, like the old fable of the volehare and the tortoise-snail, but Jeong Jeong hadn’t given him any explanation. He’d just informed Zuko that he had climbed the hill in twenty-four and a half minutes before sending him back down the hill to do it again – slower this time!

It had taken three attempts before the Deserter was satisfied that Zuko was able to walk up a hill. After that, he’d given him a leaf and instructed him to keep the flame from burning the edges. Fire might be life and endless possibilities, but Zuko feels like he’s in very real danger of dying of boredom here.

Still, Uncle told him when he left for the _Wani_ that he’d be back in three months, so Zuko knows he just has to stick it out until then. And just the thought of toughing it out makes him even more determined. If Zuko has to grit his teeth and endure Jeong Jeong’s stupid training exercises for six more weeks, he’s going to make the most of them. The old man is a hard taskmaster, but Zuko is no stranger to hard work or difficult tasks. He won’t give up – he’ll march up that Agni-damned hill a hundred times, a _thousand_ times if he has to.

At least this time around, he hasn’t had to crest a mountain peak before he starts his training. Today, he sits in a darkened room. Jeong Jeong has him meditating again.

Zuko looks hard at the four candles in front of him on Jeong Jeong’s straw meditation mat. They’re arranged in a neat square, with the two nearest to him glowing a little less brightly than the two closest to Master Jeong Jeong. He breathes in –

“Slowly.”

He breathes in _slowly_ , slowly enough that the candle’s fire doesn’t even flicker. He breathes out –

“ _Slowly_.”

_Agni fucking damn it_.

“I _am_ breathing slowly,” he challenges his master. “How am I supposed to breathe any slower?”

“If you breathed at the same rate that you learned, you would breathe much slower and learn much faster.”

_What the blazes?_ Zuko wonders to himself. That doesn’t even make _sense!_

He's going to set fire to that straw mat. He considers it the inevitable and natural conclusion to Jeong Jeong’s bullshit. Not quite impartial, but justice nonetheless.

But Zuko’s still trying to learn respect, so he doesn’t speak out of turn. He just tries to concentrate on breathing slowly. How slowly, he’s got no idea. Probably not slowly enough.

Okay, fine, he’ll admit that last breath was more of an annoyed _huff_ than a slow exhale.

“Fire is life,” Jeong Jeong intones. “Fire does not come from rage, nor from anger. Not from hate, nor from pain. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Zuko feels his brow furrow, but he does not open his eyes as Jeong Jeong continues to meditate. He focusses on his breathing. In for four, hold for four.

“Men fear most what they cannot see. And you always fear what you don't understand. But you have come to see and understand the truth. Fire is life, the element of power.”

Out for four, pause for four. Jeong Jeong’s voice is not quite as easy to tune out as the chirping of the sparrowkeets outside this shabby, dingy hut. But Zuko does his best to concentrate on his breathing all the same.

In for four, hold for four.

“What you really fear is inside yourself. You fear your own power. You fear your anger, the drive to do great or terrible things.”

Zuko does not fear his anger. Not since he has found that his firebending can be fueled by something greater.

The drive to do the _right_ thing.

Out for four, pause for four.

“You fear your own power,” Jeong Jeong repeats. Zuko wonders if the master is still speaking to his student, or to himself. “And you are right to do so. This is my gift… my curse.”

The master has slipped, perhaps unconsciously, into speaking in the first-person. Zuko is uncertain whether Jeong Jeong is still teaching him a lesson, or whether he has become an unwitting spectator to the Deserter’s own inner struggle.

“With great power,” Jeong Jeong intones, “Comes great responsibility.”

…

Zuko thinks about what Jeong Jeong has said for the rest of their session. He doesn’t know much about poetic metaphors like how fire and embers somehow represent justice, or whatever, but he _does_ know about power and responsibility.

If you have power, you are responsible for how you use it. That had been what Zuko had argued when he had wanted Uncle to get him into that war meeting in the first place – if he was going to rule the Fire Nation one day, surely he would need to start learning as much as he could? But then he had learned what General Bujing had planned for the Forty-First, and he had known that he had a responsibility to those who loved and defended their Nation. He couldn’t remain silent.

Fire Sage Yoritomo had once written that a man is honorable in proportion to the personal risks he takes for his opinion, and Zuko had risked everything when he had spoken out of turn in the Fire Lord’s presence. But he had only risked himself because he had the Fire Nation’s best interests at heart.

Zuko hadn’t been a very good student, and he had often struggled with what Master Ryōma had tried to teach him about the complex interplay between deontological ethics, moral obligation, and moral responsibility, but there was something Fire Sage Nakamura had said that had always stuck in his mind.

_Duty, and honor, and the Nation. Let these be your inspirations. Courage, and faith, and hope. Let these be your aspirations._

When Zuko had spoken out in the war meeting, he had seen it as his duty to do the right thing for the good of the Fire Nation. He had done what he had needed to do, when no one else would do it. And he had been banished for it. And then he had been tasked with capturing the Avatar; it had been the only way he could regain his honor – the only way he could go home.

It had been his responsibility. He had thought it was his _destiny_. But if his honor depended on doing the right thing… and the Fire Lord had been wrong to banish him… then did he still need to capture the Avatar?

Or was his responsibility – his duty – his _destiny_ – something different after all?

“Master,” he begins, once they have finished meditating. “What do you think about destiny?”

Jeong Jeong slowly lowers his cup. They are sitting by the riverbank with a pot of jasmine tea, but Zuko also has a cup of _shōgayu_ to wash it down with.

“Destiny?” The old firebender tests the word.

“Destiny,” Zuko confirms.

Rather than offer him a straight answer, Jeong Jeong only shakes his head. “Why do you care for destiny, boy?”

Zuko almost laughs at the question. Why does he care for destiny? He wishes he knew the answer. He has never cared for luck or fortune; why would he care for destiny?

But maybe that’s _why_. Father had said Azula was born lucky, and that Zuko was lucky to be born. But if Zuko had a destiny… If there was something in his future that he could strive for, that he could accomplish – that he could hold up to Father as evidence that he was born for great things…

Maybe then Father would see him as _worthy_. But now the Fire Lord has marked Zuko as unworthy, and deemed him a failure. But Zuko had only been trying to do the right thing.

“I thought that my destiny was to capture the Avatar,” he tries to explain. “But if the Fire Lord wasn’t right to banish me… what if I wasn’t right to think that was my destiny?”

He waits with bated breath for what Jeong Jeong will say in response. He doesn’t even take a sip of his _shōgayu_ to steady his nerves.

“What would a boy know of destiny?” Jeong Jeong asks him, narrowing his eyes. “If a fish lives its whole life in this river, does he know the river's destiny?”

Zuko looks hard at the body of water in front of them, but he’s still got no idea what the old firebender is talking about. He’s beginning to think that this will be a depressingly regular occurrence. What have fish got to do with the Avatar?

Has the Avatar been reincarnated as a _fish?_ Is Zuko going to have to go and search all the oceans for the Avatar as well? Agni damn it, how’s he supposed to pull that off? And even if he _does_ find the fish he’s looking for, how’s he supposed to prove that it’s actually the Avatar?

The Father Lord isn’t going to lift Zuko’s banishment if he returns home to the Fire Nation with a _fish!_

So what the fuck is Jeong Jeong talking about?

But the Deserter doesn’t give Zuko the chance to try and puzzle out what he means. He angrily waves a hand, almost sending the teapot flying. Uncle would surely disapprove.

“No!” He snaps. “Only that it runs on and on, out of his control! He may follow where it flows, but he cannot see the end. He cannot imagine the ocean!”

Zuko is beginning to have serious reservations about his firebending teacher’s mental stability as the grumpy old bastard sends him out to do fifty fire fists and a hundred hot squats whilst he contemplates the meaning of the ocean. He’s no stranger to cryptic proverbs and obscure metaphors – like, he’s lived on a ship with Uncle Iroh for a year and a half, he’s practically an expert on nonsensical aphorisms by now – but he’s got no idea what a fish has to do with destiny.

So he starts with the basics, like he always does. The fish needs to follow the flow of the river. Zuko’s pretty sure he’s the fish in this scenario – kind of like in _Love Amongst the Dragons_ , Act Two, Scene Five, except the herring-salmon is swimming _against_ the current in Noren’s soliloquy.

_Anyway_. Zuko’s the herring-salmon, and he’s got to follow the flow of the river, even though it runs on and on out of his control. He can’t help where the river takes him, but that’s not the point – he’s got to go with the river, no matter where it ends up.

Kind of like… well, Zuko’s not quite sure what it’s like. He’s never been a fish, he doesn’t know what it’s like. You’re just doing what you’re supposed to do. What you’ve always done, what you’re always going to do.

But when Zuko looks at it like that, he thinks he understands.

…

It might have taken him _fifty_ fire fists and _a hundred_ hot squats to try and puzzle out Jeong Jeong’s weird fish-river speech, but by the time his legs have stopped trembling and he’s regained sensation in his hands, and he’s able to crawl his way back into the master’s hut, Zuko's pretty sure he’s managed to figure it out.

“My destiny is to do the right thing,” he tells Master Jeong Jeong. “I can follow where that destiny takes me, like the fish in the river, but I can’t see the end. I can’t imagine the ocean, because…”

He falters slightly, because this next part hits a little too close to home for him. It reminds him that his home is far away, and that his home is a ship that cannot return to his homeland’s shores. But Zuko has to continue and finish what he’s trying to say, because his mother once told him that he is someone who keeps fighting even when it’s hard.

That’s what he’s supposed to do. What he’s always done, what he’s always going to do.

“Because following my destiny might mean I end up on the ocean,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. “It might not be where I imagined ending up, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t do the right thing.”

Zuko waits with bated breath for Jeong Jeong’s verdict as the old master strokes his long beard and then scratches the back of his head. Eventually, he heaves a sigh and lets out a grunt.

“You have clearly dedicated time and effort to your response, Prince Zuko,” he states in a gruff voice. “Your answer is considered and well thought-out; I am impressed.”

Zuko fights the urge to grin. It might have taken a _disgusting_ amount of hot squats, but he’s pretty pleased with his new revelation. Just wait until he tells Uncle Iroh about this one! Or, actually, he’d probably better not; if Uncle hears that he’s finally managed to crack a proverb, he’ll probably throw a load more at him just to test him –

“Dedicate yourself again to imagining the ocean,” Jeong Jeong instructs him, folding his arms. “Fifty more fire fists as you do so.”

Zuko feels his jaw drop. “Fifty?!”

Oh, what there – oh, _come on!_

He can’t _believe_ this. He’d fucking – _a hundred fire fists?_

“And an extra fifty on top of that, if you will challenge your master!”

Zuko’s absolutely fucking fuming, but he’s learnt the hard way that challenging a master firebender isn’t a great idea. He spends the next forty-nine fire fists picturing himself kicking Jeong Jeong’s ass all the way to the ocean, and when he gets to fifty, he imagines punting the grumpy old bastard a mile out to sea.

He fucking _hates_ proverbs.


	5. Chapter 5

Zuko has heard it say that familiarity breeds contempt, but the more time he spends learning firebending from Master Jeong Jeong, he thinks it’s more like the grumpy old admiral’s contempt becomes more familiar to him. He soon gets used to Jeong Jeong’s strict training regime, and by the time the leaves start falling in autumn, he’s settled into a disciplined routine.

He wakes up at dawn, and then he sits with his firebending master out by the banks of the river, where he seeks to connect with the sun and wake up his inner fire. Then, he takes some time to do some private meditation with his candles. Zuko had started with four, but now he’s moved on to five, and he’s secretly harboring hopes of reaching _six_ by the time Uncle arrives in a week’s time.

After meditating and drinking his _shōgayu_ tea, Zuko makes breakfast, which usually consists of jook or porridge with some fruits. Though Jeong Jeong sometimes gives Zuko some plain food meant more for sustenance than enjoyment, the Deserter never joins him for meals. Maybe the constant grumbling noise he’s always making isn’t him complaining about Zuko’s slow progress; maybe it’s just his stomach.

Zuko isn’t entirely sure whether Jeong Jeong sleeps, either. He’s beginning to suspect that his teacher spends sleepless nights hanging upside-down in his hut like some demented wolfbat, muttering to himself about how evil firebending is. It seems like the only respite Zuko has from hearing variants on the refrain that _fire is a burning curse_ is when they play Pai Sho.

There’s a lot of Pai Sho, because apparently it’s not enough just to know the passcodes; no, you actually have to be a competent player in order to be a part of the Order of the White Lotus. Zuko didn’t think it was possible, but Jeong Jeong somehow hates the way Zuko favors the knotweed tile even more than Uncle does. He keeps a running total of how the number of times his firebending teacher calls him _foolish boy_ , and if he says it more than three times before noon, Zuko will play the knotweed the first chance he gets. If he gets to _five_ , he’ll wait until he’s got the opportunity to play the white lotus tile, and _then_ he’ll play the knotweed instead.

Justice. Sweet, sweet justice.

Other times, Jeong Jeong will just drill Zuko on his firebending basics until Zuko isn’t sure whether _root_ is even a word anymore. Today is one of those days.

Zuko’s chest heaves as he takes in rapid breaths. Jeong Jeong has been blasting fireballs at him for the past hour, testing both his reflexes and his balance. Zuko has avoided being hit, but there have been two occasions when he has stumbled as he’s had to move with alacrity to get out of the way of one of Jeong Jeong’s _screaming comets_ , as Ensign Takahashi would call them.

Come to think of it, Taki would probably call Jeong Jeong quite a few things as well, not all of them as polite as a _screaming comet_. She’d probably say he was more of a _screaming –_

Jeong Jeong surprises him now by aiming a quick spurt of flame at Zuko’s right side, and he has to sidestep it in a haste. His left ankle is long-since healed from the time Azula had pushed him off the roof, but he still favors it slightly, and there’s the slightest hesitation as he puts all his weight on it in order to contort his body.

“Enough.”

Zuko resists the urge to throw a fireball of his own at Jeong Jeong. It is a testament to Uncle’s influence that countless cups of calming jasmine tea have helped Zuko discover that between _instinct_ and _action_ , there is a little something called _thinking things through_.

“You continue to second-guess yourself,” the Master declares. “You must strengthen your root! Without control of your root, how can you hope to control fire?”

Zuko lets out his frustration in a quick, sharp exhalation that makes the air in front of him shimmer with heat. Jeong Jeong pays the same reverent attention to the importance of a strong root as Uncle Iroh, and they even have the same rhythm to how they talk about it.

But Zuko has been doing this for an hour. A whole _hour_ , and this is only his third mistake. He’s pretty sure even Azula, once upon a time, made three mistakes in an hour. She might have been four years old, but _still_.

“I've been drilling this sequence all day,” he growls at Jeong Jeong. “Teach me the next set!”

“No!” Jeong Jeong growls right back at him. “Drill it again! Your firebending basics are your greatest weapons!”

Fucking _basics_.

Zuko hates the basics. He’s heard it from Uncle a hundred times that his firebending basics are his greatest weapons, and he doesn’t need to hear it again from Jeong Jeong. Never mind that Uncle had deemed him a master of Sozin School; it feels like he’s forever stuck on the basics.

Zuko had admitted, when he had asked Jeong Jeong to teach him, that he has learnt much, yet he still has much to learn. But how’s he supposed to learn when Jeong Jeong won’t fucking _teach_ him?

“I'm more than ready!” He snarls. “I’ve had training!”

“The training is nothing!” Jeong Jeong snaps back at him with equal – no, _greater_ force. “The will is everything! The will to act!”

His hands move blindingly fast, and he drives Zuko backwards with a fireblast that shatters his defenses. For the second time in less than two months, a firebending explosion sends him crashing into a tree trunk.

“Fire will spread and destroy everything in its path, if one does not have the will to control it!” Jeong Jeong shouts at him as he struggles to his knees. “That is its destiny! You are not ready!”

The whole of Zuko’s right side is aching from where he’s landed on it, and he’s smashed his elbow against the hard ground. The right side of his face is numb, and he’s pretty sure seeing _two_ Jeong Jeongs isn’t a good sign. Seeing one is bad enough.

But if Zuko knows _anything_ , it’s that he possesses the will to act. To keep fighting, even when it’s hard. To do what has to be done, when no one else will do it.

He grits his teeth and forces himself to get up. Once before, he knelt and did not fight. Now, he rises and prepares to fight a firebending master.

“You can barely stand,” Jeong Jeong observes. “Yet fire does not wait for you to be ready. Fire is not considerate or fair. And make no mistake – here, you face fire.”

His yellow eyes watch Zuko intently, like an admiral calculating his enemy’s weaknesses. Well, Zuko’s _done_ with showing shameful weakness.

“I don’t care,” he manages, having to reach for every word through the fogginess in his head. “I’m not – giving up. Not without a fight.”

He knows that fire won’t wait for him to be ready. He knows that fire isn’t considerate or fair. He’s faced fire before, and he’s facing it now, but _this time_ , things will be different.

When he opens his eyes, Jeong Jeong looks almost pleased with him, and if Zuko’s seeing things like _that_ , that’s probably the best indication yet that he’s got a concussion.

…

When Zuko wakes up the next morning at daybreak, he’s lying in his shabby little hut on a mattress that’s _definitely_ not Jeong Jeong’s – there’s no way the old firebender owns anything this luxurious or comfortable. But unfortunately for Zuko, he isn’t really in a position to enjoy himself. He’s got a pounding headache, his shoulder hurts like blazes, and the entire right side of his torso looks like he’s been trampled on by a horde of rampaging Komodo rhinos.

Somehow, he manages to drag himself along to the riverside, where the former admiral is already waiting for him. His bow is a little shaky, but before he can lower himself to sit by the bank, Jeong Jeong shakes his head curtly.

“This morning, you will meditate whilst standing only on your left leg,” he says without preamble, passing Zuko a cup of jasmine tea. “For every time you overbalance, do twenty fire fists.”

“What?” Zuko blinks hard. “Master, what’re you –”

“For every question you ask, do fifty fire fists.”

Zuko takes the hint, and drinks his jasmine tea. Thirty-five minutes and eighty fire fists later, the deserter Jeong Jeong interrupts the meditation session to declare Zuko, son of Ursa, to be a firebending master.


	6. Chapter 6

Uncle Iroh arrives at Jeong Jeong’s camp with four boxes of jasmine tea, of which apparently only one is for the people actually living at the camp by the riverside. The other three are taken into Jeong Jeong’s hut as the two old men discuss… whatever it is old people discuss.

Secret society stuff? The good old days in Fan Hong? Whether the rock tile is as effective a counter to the knotweed as Jeong Jeong claims, or whether Uncle’s boat-white lotus combination is superior?

Zuko’s got no idea, and Uncle is frustratingly tight-lipped when he and Jeong Jeong emerge from the hut without the tea. He’s here to take Zuko from this camp in the northern Earth Kingdom back to the _Wani_ in the west, but to Zuko’s irritation, he has to stand there with his already-packed bags and try not to impatiently tap his foot against the ground as Uncle profusely thanks Jeong Jeong for agreeing to train Zuko. And after all, what sort of guest would Uncle be, if he did not bring a gift to show his appreciation for how gracious a host Jeong Jeong has been?

So Zuko is essentially exchanged for three boxes of jasmine tea, which he thinks says a lot about his worth in Uncle Iroh’s eyes. Still, it’s probably a bit more of a compliment than if he had turned up with assam.

Zuko’s of a mind that Jeong Jeong _deserves_ assam. And the grumpy old bastard would probably enjoy the bitter taste, too.

“My thanks, old friend, for taking such good care of my nephew,” Uncle says _yet again_ to Jeong Jeong with a cheery smile on his face.

“Good care?” Zuko mutters to himself, his patience wearing thin. “Uncle, I’ve got bruises right across my –”

Uncle’s expression doesn’t change as he steps on his foot. Agni _damn_ it, that’s another bruise right there.

“The boy is slow to learn, and hopelessly hard-headed,” Jeong Jeong answers Uncle flatly. “But by a miracle, some lessons have entered his skull, and it seems they will find it hard to leave again.”

Zuko sees Uncle shift his weight meaningfully out of the corner of his eye, and reluctantly closes his mouth.

“Hard-headed as my nephew may be, I am sure he will leave you behind with a heavy heart,” Uncle has the shameless _audacity_ to straight-facedly assure Jeong Jeong. Zuko recognizes the cue, though, and he bows lowly to the old master. Jeong Jeong’s bow isn’t nearly as low, but it’s a bow all the same, and Zuko figures he’ll take what he can get.

…

The return journey from Jeong Jeong’s camp back to the _Wani_ is much less eventful than the first, not least because Zuko sets fire to everything Uncle Iroh picks up from the forest floor. He may well have just destroyed what was _definitely_ almost _certainly_ the white dragon bush _this time_ , Uncle, but he might also have just saved you from another near-death experience, so the correct response is a _thank you_ , not heartbroken weeping.

Xuzhou is about seven miles from Yu Dao, and accordingly suffers for its close proximity to the colony. The _Wani_ is the only ship that has been forged in a steelworks to be seen in the town’s port, and it dwarfs the little wooden fishing boats scattered around the bay. Zuko wonders how many fishermen might have been called away to fight in the war. He tries not to think about how many of them might not have returned.

General Iroh led the Fire Army’s march through Shangqui province in the Third Wei Xinhai Campaign, and Uncle tells Zuko lowly that the emergence of Yu Dao as the primary port for trade from the western colonies to the Fire Nation has drastically undercut the local economy. More cargo is handled at Yu Dao in a week than Xuzhou sees in two months, and it’s the main trade hub for rice to be transported to the Fire colonies.

“An army marches on its stomach,” he says with a wry chuckle, patting his own belly. It’s with an effort that Zuko resists the urge to make a good-natured quip about how the generals seem more to _amble along_. He won’t show Uncle anything that might be construed as disrespect in front of the crew. They’re halfway up the ramp to the _Wani_ before he recognizes the familiar figure waiting on the deck to greet them.

Zuko suppresses a groan; Lieutenant Jee is a capable officer, but to say that his relationship with the older firebender could be summarized as ‘strained’ is putting it rather lightly. They’ve butted heads over everything from prioritizing the capture of the Avatar to the way Zuko treats the crew to whether meetings to discuss budget forecasts need be fortnightly or monthly, with more than a couple of arguments over whether Jee’s appetite for fireflakes can be reasonably defined as an addiction that prevents him from carrying out his job effectively.

In hindsight, Zuko can admit that the way his thirteen-year-old self repeated needled Lieutenant Jee about his fireflakes habit had been a bit petty. But in his defense, he had been thirteen and desperate to prove himself, and the only way he could think to do that when he was a banished exile was to try and bring the other people around him down to his own shameful, dishonorable level. Their working relationship now isn’t quite as bitter as it had been back then, but the Lieutenant has never made a secret of the fact that he is not Zuko’s biggest fan.

He usually makes it quite clear, actually; it’s something to do with the way he folds his arms over his chest and looks down at Zuko with a look of intense, long-suffering irritation. The way he makes his mustache twitch isn’t _quite_ as passive-aggressive as Uncle’s _Looks_ , but it’s definitely close.

So Zuko is rather taken aback by the way Jee clicks his heels together, puts his hands together in the sign of the flame, and bows deeply from the waist as Zuko comes to stand in front of him.

“Your Highness,” Jee intones, and it’s the first time he’s referred to Zuko by that title without subtle, mocking sarcasm. “Welcome back.”

Zuko risks a glance in Uncle’s direction – maybe Jee’s talking to him? But Uncle only looks back at him with a twinkle in his eye. _We’ve had a chat_ , he mouths back to Zuko.

Whatever that means. He turns back to Jee, who’s still bent at the waist.

“Um,” he begins awkwardly. “Thank you?”

He _knows_ something’s up when, instead of making his mustache twitch like he usually does whenever Zuko sounds like a complete and utter moron, Jee just straightens up and salutes him. And then he holds the salute.

And then he doesn’t really do anything else. Zuko’s even more unprepared for this than he had been for Jee to be polite to him. What the fuck’s he still standing there for?

“You are dismissed, Lieutenant,” Uncle says, and Jee straightens up. Agni damn it, so _that_ was what he’d been waiting for.

 _Well, what the blazes was that all about?_ Zuko wonders to himself as he watches the Lieutenant depart. Jee’s never waited for Zuko to dismiss him before, so why in Agni’s name has he started _now?_

He shakes his head as he heads for the bridge. Still, after all the bullshit Zuko’s had to suffer at Jeong Jeong’s gnarled hands over the past three months, he has to admit that it’s kind of nice to feel like there’s at least _one_ grumpy bastard out there who’s happy to see him.

…

The _Wani_ has a small crew; only twenty-five or so set sail under Zuko’s command twenty months ago. It had been a daunting number for a thirteen-year-old to keep track of, but he had quickly come to recognize faces and names. He had pored over their service records in his cabin, and that’s how he knows that of the twenty-five who had made up the crew in the beginning, twenty-two have seen active service in the Earth Kingdom – it might have been twenty-one, because Boatswain Honda had actually been exempted from conscription due to his religious beliefs, but Honda had volunteered to serve his Nation by working as a medic at the field hospitals in Wei Xinhai.

That’s probably where he became such close friends with Midshipman Yang; Zuko remembers from his records that Yang is a veteran of the First _and_ Second Wei Xinhai Campaigns. He is also aware that Yang had left active service after his father had been killed at the Battle of Tanggu under General Iroh’s command, and that the Dragon of the West still sends money out of his own purse back to a widow living in Shu Jing.

So that means that Lieutenant Jee, Ensign Takahashi, and Cook Yoshida (what _is_ Yoshida’s rank?) are the only three members of crew who haven’t served on the frontline of the Great March of Civilization. Of those three, Lieutenant Jee served for thirty-four years in the Fire Navy as a logistics officer, and Zuko’s got no idea what Yoshida’s story is, but Uncle seems to like him and Zuko’s not unwise enough to try and get on the cook’s bad side by asking him. He doesn’t want to end up with mercury in his soup on _purpose_ this time round.

The third, Ensign Takahashi, is the youngest member of the _Wani_ ’s crew and isn’t even a decade older than Zuko, so she might well have been conscripted in the last twenty months if not for Uncle Iroh’s still-considerable influence in the Nation. Her references are impressive; top of her class and Head Girl at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls before she joined the guard at the Royal Palace aged eighteen. Zuko remembers her being a valued member of the palace’s serving team for nearly four years, but Uncle keeps saying that he only asked her to come along on the _Wani_ because she was able to show him a trick play with the chrysanthemum tile that he’d never seen before.

In the few months before Zuko had been banished, Azula had enrolled at the Royal Fire Academy, so Zuko knows from her chatter at the dinner table that students study Fire Nation history, which an eleven-year-old Zuli had found deathly dull. But she had rather enjoyed the military strategy classes, where she, Mai and Ty Lee could study weaponry and combat techniques, undergo survival training, and forage for food in the wild.

Since he’s gone to see the Sun Warriors, Zuko has been knocked down more times than he can count by benders and non-benders alike, spent five nights sleeping under the stars, and only just managed to get Uncle to a healer in time to stop the old man from dying after drinking some stupid _plant_. But he’s someone who learns from his mistakes, so he figures that if there’s some way he can learn to spot the difference between white dragon bush and white jade, he’d be a fool not to take it. And besides that, he’s had enough of being injured because he doesn’t know how to fight back without firebending. Sure, he knows the basics – don’t tuck your thumb into your hand when you’re throwing a punch, make sure your arm and wrist are straight so you don’t end up breaking anything – but Zuko has never been satisfied with the basics.

Maybe it’s because he’s born of fire, an element that always seeks something new to burn, but he’s never been content to settle without striving. He always needs a goal, and when he sets his mind to something, nothing but mastery will suffice.

So he approaches Ensign Takahashi whilst she’s out on deck running through her morning training routine. She seems to rise as early as any firebender, and there’s something in her acrobatic flips, kicks, punches and spins that reminds Zuko of his sister, too. It’s probably the way she gives him the impression that she could take his head off and land without a hair out of place.

She does in fact come worryingly close as she finishes her routine with a final spinning roundhouse kick, and Zuko can hear her bare foot whistle through the air until it comes to a perfectly-poised halt only a few inches from his face.

“Captain.” Takahashi doesn’t even sound out of breath.

Zuko considers himself a reasonably athletic person, and endless fire fists and hot squats with Jeong Jeong have improved his breathing and musculature, but the way Takahashi holds her contorted body on one leg makes him feel distinctly unfit just _looking_ at her.

“Um,” he says. “Ensign Takahashi.”

“You know that’s Taki,” Takahashi straightens up in a single fluid motion. “What can I do for you, boss?”

That’s another thing about Takahashi that reminds Zuko of his sister; her distinct lack of regard for the respect he should be due as her social superior. When he had been thirteen, it had been intolerable. Now, it’s only an issue when she decides to share a little too much about that time she caught a seven-year-old Zuko reading through the final scene of _Love Amongst the Dragons_ in front of the mirror.

It probably wouldn’t have been quite so embarrassing if he hadn’t been practicing the Dragon Empress’ part at the time. Zuko tries not to flush at the memory of how he had let out a surprised yelp at being discovered, but at least he hadn’t been launched into a tree that time around.

But that’s sort of why he’s here right now, so he tries to focus on his goal. “You learnt how to fight at the Fire Academy, right?”

“Yep,” Taki acknowledged. “Taught your sister’s friend, too. Mai.”

That’s something Zuko is encouraged to hear. “Could you teach me?”

He tries not to shrink under Ensign Takahashi’s assessing gaze. Whenever his teachers have looked upon him in the past, their judgements have invariably been less than complimentary. Weak; talentless; foolish. But whatever the woman is thinking – and Taki’s thoughts are usually less than complimentary – she only shrugs.

“You’re heavier than Mai was back when I taught her,” she tells him frankly. “You wouldn’t be able to do some of the moves she can do.”

Zuko has heard something along those lines before. _You can’t do what she can do_ has been the constant refrain of his life since he was six years old. But Zuko will do what others won’t do, and he won’t back down in the face of Taki’s judgement.

“What kind of moves would I be able to do?” He asks. “What can you teach me?”

Taki’s eyes narrow. “That depends.”

Zuko’s at least a little cautious when he hears Takahashi say something like that.

Over the past year or so, the ensign has acquired a well-deserved reputation for being a vicious little huckster who plays for high stakes. Although gambling is prohibited aboard the ship, Taki has never shown much regard for the rules, and Zuko knows that Midshipman Yang, for instance, has wagered and lost quite a few items on Pai Sho matches with the junior officer, including but not limited to: two bags of fireflakes, six copper pieces, and a bar of soap.

Still, that’s nothing compared to the forfeits she’s demanded from others aboard the ship; when she beat Uncle Iroh by using a rhododendron tile and boat-wheel combination in their semi-legendary double-or-nothing rematch, Uncle had ended up having to go without ginseng for a month.

“On what, exactly?” He asks with great trepidation. The thought of spending a month at sea without sticky buns is a sickening prospect.

Taki folds her arms and cocks her head at him as she calculates what she’s able to get away with asking for. “On what my duties aboard ship are for the next month.”

Zuko groans. “Seriously?”

She just shrugs. “If you're good at something, never do it for free.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The details of the Royal Fire Academy for Girls’ [curriculum](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Royal_Fire_Academy_for_Girls#Curriculum) is taken from Avatar Wiki.


	7. Chapter 7

Taki does eventually consent to teach Zuko how to fight without his firebending, but it comes at a steep price. Not only does he have to agree to cover four of her shifts on the night-watch schedule for the next two weeks, but he also has to take the blame for any three of her next eight minor misdemeanors. Zuko just has to hope that they’re going by his definition of ‘minor’ and not hers.

When he turns up for their first lesson, Taki begins by handing him a list of what she learnt in the hand-to-hand combat classes at the Fire Academy. It’s a fairly lengthy list, and tucked in amongst the throwing, takedowns, leg sweeps, holds, gouging, striking, and kicking, Zuko sees a word that instantly makes him want to run for the hills.

“Breathing?” He asks dubiously, looking at the piece of paper he’s holding. It’s got a few stains on it that might be _chi_ -enhancing tea, but then again might be blood. It’s hard to tell with Ensign Takahashi. “We’re going to be learning _breathing?_ ”

“ _We’re_ not learning anything,” Taki corrects him. “ _You’re_ learning proper breath control. I already did my time.”

Three months with Master Jeong Jeong means that Zuko’s already spent more than enough time standing still and concentrating on his breathing. “So did I.”

“Then you should be pretty good at this,” Taki tells him without any sympathy. “There’s a lot of crossover between this fighting style and firebending; they’ve both got loads of _katas_ that put a lot of focus on your breathing. You’re a master firebender, so breathing should come pretty easily for you.”

The fact that Takahashi recognizes him as a _master_ only somewhat mollifies Zuko as she sets him a simple _kata_ to work through. It involves quite a bit of movement, and Zuko much prefers this to Jeong Jeong’s meditation, where he’d just stay in one position for hours on end. Taki says it’s one of the first sets she learnt at the Fire Academy, but even if it’s for beginners, Zuko likes to think he picks it up pretty quickly. He’s put right back in his place when she informs him that he _should_ be picking it up pretty quickly.

“When I was teaching Ukano Mai this stuff, Princess Azula got interested in it as well,” she says. “She was pretty good at them, too. Apparently, some of the sets are pretty similar to some of the Szeto-level _katas_ she was learning.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Zuko admits, trying not to feel too bitter about the fact. “I never learnt any Szeto _katas_.”

It seems so _typical_ that even when Zuko is trying to move beyond his firebending, or even to move towards something that he wouldn’t have thought his little sister would have been interested in, she had _still_ gotten there first, and probably done it better than him, too.

According to Taki, Azula had been _pretty good_ at this stuff. Knowing his little sister, Zuko suspects that meant it had come as easily to her as everything else always does. Azula had been a prodigy, and she had been learning Szeto aged _nine_ , when he had been eleven and _still_ struggling to move past the basics. He had been hoping that maybe he could reach that kind of level by fifteen, but he’d been banished before that point.

Still, now he’s nearly fifteen and he’s a master firebender _anyway_ , so… that probably counts for something, right?

Zuko wonders whether Uncle would have anything to say about how _though the river may wind the long way round, it will always end up in the sea_ , or something like that. Maybe Jeong Jeong would have some esoteric bullshit to share about fish.

“Well,” Taki says after an awkward moment that goes on just about long enough for it to become an awkward pause. “Bending’s bending, right?”

Zuko’s pretty sure that if he just dismissively says that _sure, just like throwing knives and shuriken are pretty much the same thing_ , it’s not going to end well for him. He resists the urge to tell her that there’s a world of difference between Sozin-style firebending and what the original firebenders have told him.

He had to promise the dragons, as Uncle did before him, not to share the secret of their existence unless it was absolutely vital. Peevishly lecturing Taki on the myriad styles and schools of firebending probably doesn’t count.

…

Over the next few weeks, Takahashi teaches Zuko how to throw a punch, how to use hand- and elbow-strikes, and how to grapple with an opponent. He has a strong root, and it’s hard to knock him off balance, so moves and attacks involving his upper body usually end well for him.

The look of horror on Master Kobayashi’s face if he ever learnt that his student has put his firebending principles to use in _unarmed brawling_ helps Zuko put an extra few pounds of force behind his punches. But the way Zuko’s firebending seems to lend itself so well to his training, particularly his breathing _katas_ , does get him thinking.

The reason firebending places such an emphasis on breathing, as Uncle Iroh has told him countless times, is because firebending comes from the breath. Uncle’s also told him countless times that _fire is life_ , and before he visited the Sun Warriors and realized the truth about firebending, Zuko had just thought that it was just another one of the old man’s never-ending supply of meaningless aphorisms. But since then, he’s found the truth; and he thinks that he’s figured out why firebending comes from the breath whilst he was learning under Jeong Jeong, too.

Fire is the element of power, and power has to be controlled. With great power comes great responsibility, so you have to be in control of your power. If you’re in control of your breath, you’re in control of your firebending – _that’s_ why firebending comes from the breath. But fire itself doesn’t come from the breath, apart from that party trick the crew makes Uncle Iroh do whenever someone beats him at Pai Sho; instead, fire comes from the hands and the feet. And if using the hands and feet are the primary means by which firebenders _bend_ , that’s something Zuko should probably make a note of before he finds himself fighting firebenders again.

He has to run it through in his head more than just a couple of times before he’s satisfied with it, but he’s reasonably confident that he knows what he’s talking about by the time he meets Takahashi for their next evening training session.

“My sister’s got a friend who knows how to _chi_ -block people,” he tells her before they begin. “Can you teach me how to block _chi?_ ”

Much to his frustration, Taki shakes her head.

“Hate to disappoint,” she says, displaying a shocking change in attitude from the one she has demonstrated for the past twenty months. “ _Chi_ -blocking is one of those secrets that hardly anyone knows, and the people who know it like to keep it a secret.”

Zuko knows it was a long shot, but he’s still more than a little disappointed. And confused, too; Takahashi might not be a firebender, but she’s still one of the most capable fighters on the _Wani_. That’s not just down to the advantages of being young and fit – Uncle is an old man, but he’s one of the few fighters who can consistently beat the young soldier.

“But you spar with Jee all the time,” he points out. “How do you beat him if you can’t stop him bending?”

“Hit fast, hit hard, hit where it hurts,” Taki answers with the utmost seriousness.

Zuko gulps, and it’s enough to make her deadpan expression crack into a smirk.

“Yeah,” she nods in satisfaction. “That’s what I thought.”

Zuko can see a lot of similarities between Mai and Ensign Takahashi, now that he knows what to look for.

Takahashi might not know how to attack _chi_ pathways, but she does go on to teach Zuko how to target nerve endings and joints in the body. Wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees, ankles; Zuko might not ever be able to block a bender’s _chi_ , but before too long, he knows how to hinder or injure them badly enough that they might as well be _chi_ -blocked. The number of times Taki throws him, sweeps his legs out from under him, and otherwise sends him crashing to the deck in a crumpled heap, he knows what he’s talking about when he says these attacks are _extremely_ fast, hard, and painful.

…

“If you’re in an extended fight, you need to focus on ending it as quickly as possible,” Taki explains to him in one of their afternoon sessions. “You can either use large and obvious movements, or small and subtle ones, but either way, you’re trying to get close enough to your opponent that you can finish the fight.”

Takahashi teaches Zuko how to incapacitate a person in the same casual tone she uses when she’s pointing out how playing the wheel tile on the chrysanthemum tile can be a pretty cool trick play. He glances nervously at her left hand, but thankfully, her fingers are half-curled and they look pretty relaxed. He got a little too cocky earlier after a _kata_ involving two _tsukiage_ uppercuts and then a half-turn pivot into an _ushiro mawashi geri_ leg sweep, and Taki had humbled him by giving him a _naname-uchi_ knife-hand blow straight to the throat. Since then, he’s been trying to stay _at least_ eight feet away from her, which is about a foot and a half more than he usually keeps between them.

At long-range, Taki has him practice his jumping kicks and lunging hand strikes, and as they move from ranged strikes to close-range and grappling moves, he notices even more of an emphasis on his footwork. If he’s at a distance like they are today, Taki has him bridge that distance between the two of them with a flurry of kicks and hand strikes, but if he’s so much as a half-step out from perfection, she’ll stop him mid-attack and make him start it again. The constant repetition can be draining, and it reminds Zuko an awful lot of his firebending basics, but this time round he strangely welcomes it.

“So if you’re fighting at a distance, you need to turn the fight into more of a circular motion,” Taki explains to him. “But that doesn’t mean just going around in a circle – it means pulling your opponent into that circle, and not letting them push you around. You need to be intentional when it’s time for you to act.”

“Like firebending,” Zuko says. He wipes the sweat from his brow before it can drop into his right eye. “Master Jeong Jeong always said that the will is everything. The will to act.”

“Jeong Jeong?” Takahashi asks dryly, raising an eyebrow. “The Deserter?”

Ah, right. That’s what Jeong Jeong is known in the Nation for. He’s not Zuko’s firebending master, or Uncle’s friend, or a member of the Order of the White Lotus. He’s the one who left the Nation behind.

“I, um, heard someone talking about his ideas,” Zuko says hastily, trying desperately _not_ to give the game away. “And, uh, I guess they kind of stuck? Not that I agree with all his ideas! Like, because he’s a deserter, which, uh, obviously… isn’t great?”

He’s not sure how convincing he is. If he has to run and get Uncle Iroh to lie in his place, that’s going to be even less convincing. But after all that shit with the white jade tea, Uncle owes him _big time_ , so Zuko’s prepared to swallow his pride and do it. He waits for Taki to respond and tries not to shift his weight too nervously on the balls of his feet.

“Well, I don’t know anything about firebending, but Master Jeong Jeong’s probably right about that one,” she eventually agrees, and Zuko breathes a sigh of relief.

If Uncle heard about how he’d managed to let it slip that they were part of a secret society, he probably wouldn’t be very impressed with him.

“The will _is_ everything,” Taki continues, “And you need to be intentional about what you’re doing in a fight. You’re trying to limit your opponent’s avenues to where _you_ want them to attack – and when you can control where they can go, you can control your opponent.”

She demonstrates what she means; as Zuko attacks her, she consistently manages to maneuver him into attacking from an angle that leaves his left side open to a counterattack. The first time, it’s a simple jab to his ribs that leaves him smarting; the second time, it’s a leg sweep that sends him off balance. The third time, she grabs and wrenches his forearm, twisting it up behind his back until he has to cry out in pain.

“You can’t let your opponent push you around,” she reminds him impatiently, reiterating the point by applying another painful few ounces of pressure to his arm. “You keep letting me set where you can and can’t attack.”

“Okay, okay!” He grits his teeth and tries to shuffle himself one inch closer to Taki so that he can relieve some of the pain in his arm. “How do I change that?”

“Hit fast,” she instructs him, letting his arm go and giving him a firm push. “You’re too slow – you’re lumbering around on your feet like a fucking Komodo rhino. A _drunk_ Komodo rhino.”

 _Agni damn it_. Zuko grits his teeth as they settle back into their beginning stances, two meters away from each other on the deck. He’s trying his best to stay on the balls of his feet, but he’s quickly realizing that this is one of the scenarios where keeping to his firebending basics won’t help him. Firebending demands good balance, but it also requires you to stay stable; because of the importance of standing your ground and keeping a strong root, there aren’t too many firebenders out there who can fight on the move.

They’re moving clockwise, so he has to focus with his left eye. It isn’t as much of a disadvantage now as it might have been, but that’s mainly because Takahashi hasn’t been targeting it. If she _did_ start going for the places she could inflict the most pain, Zuko’s pretty sure the left side of his face would be at the top of her list. It doesn’t feel much, but there’s more to pain than just the physical.

 _Hit fast_ , Zuko repeats to himself as he and Taki circle each other. Just like she’d told him in their previous sessions – _hit fast, hit hard, hit where it hurts_. She’s been running this drill for about half an hour now, and he’s still got no idea what she expects from him –

Suddenly, Takahashi strikes out, and he has to deflect a fist with his forearm, before barreling forward and charging into her sternum with his shoulder. It’s not anywhere close to the set of forms and movements he’s been practicing for the past few days, but maybe that’s what takes her by surprise. She stumbles back with a curse that would make Uncle blush to hear.

“That’s not what I taught you,” she tells him, rubbing her collarbone with a scowl as she straightens up. “You’re supposed to avoid the punch, step into the half-turn, and use your combined momentum to throw me over your shoulder.”

Oh, so _that’s_ what she’d been expecting from him. That makes a bit more sense to Zuko, but still. “It worked, didn’t it?”

That might be a bit disrespectful, especially considering that Taki could probably kill him in about six billion different ways, but he figures if Takahashi’s able to get away with talking shit, _he_ should be allowed to get away with it.

Rather than strike him down where he stands with _kyūshojutsu_ , Taki seems to be of a similar mind, because she just grins back at him.

“Fair point, Zuko,” she tells him. “Fair point.”

Actually, now Zuko comes to think of it, that smile looks fucking menacing.

 _Shit_.

…

“Maybe Nanquan style would work for you,” Taki says thoughtfully, once he’s recovered from the beatdown she ends up giving him. “Stable balance, low stances, loads of hand movements – kind of like firebending, right?”

Zuko has heard of Nanquan; it’s one of the regions where the Earth Kingdom resistance gave the Fire Army particular trouble. In his mind’s eye, Master Kobayashi’s outrage seems to intensify, but the idea of using an Earth Kingdom fighting style doesn’t bother him so much – like he said, why should it matter if it’s what he’s been taught or not, so long as it works?

So the idea of using another nation’s fighting style isn’t the issue; Zuko’s just curious as to how Ensign Takahashi ended up knowing _Nanquan_ , of all things.

“An Earth Kingdom style?” He wheezes dubiously. “Where did you learn that?”

“Clue’s in the name,” Taki replies, and, no matter how much Zuko asks, she refuses to tell him anything more than that. It’s only when she threatens to give him another _tsukidashi_ stomach punch that he stops asking her.

Zuko thinks that if Master Kobayashi would be disappointed in him for taking all his firebending principles and applying them to an Earth Kingdom fighting style, then Master Kobayashi shouldn’t have taught him firebending principles that were so _easy_ to apply to an Earth Kingdom fighting style. Sozin school requires a bender to keep their legs stable, and to generate power in their attacks through the legs, hips and torso working together in intentional, coordinated motions. It encourages sharp transitions through the stances, and the movements must be fast and decisive.

Zuko is beginning to see that for all that the Fire Nation believes that fire is the superior element, it isn’t really all that different from Earth. This must be what Uncle keeps talking about – how he learnt how to redirect lightning from studying waterbenders, how Zuko can learn a lot from Uncle’s old earthbender friend in Omashu, all the rest of it. Zuko’s learning how to apply his firebending basics to an Earth Kingdom fighting style so he can fight like a Nanquan native.

But the thought of utilizing these sorts of fighting techniques on Fire Nation soldiers is one that still makes him uncomfortable; these concepts are a little too close to firebending for his peace of mind. So instead, Takahashi starts mixing in a few different stances that have Zuko standing taller with a narrower base. It really affects his stability and his center of gravity, and it throws him off the first couple of times she strikes him and sends him toppling over.

It takes Zuko a week to learn how to balance on the balls of his feet in these new, unfamiliar stances, but once he does, he finds that this new approach allows him to move through his _katas_ with greater speed and agility, and this looser approach to his root allows him to mix more kicks and leg strikes into his fighting. What Takahashi’s teaching him now might not be crossing anywhere near to traditional firebending, but it makes it easier to evade her when she launches a _naeryeo chagi_ downwards axe kick at his head, so Zuko thinks it’s worth the trade-off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The **very** intimidating list of techniques Takahashi teaches Zuko are all used in the Japanese martial arts system [_jujutsu_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jujutsu#Characteristics). The first _kata_ Zuko learns is [_sanchin_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C5%8Dj%C5%AB-ry%C5%AB#Sanchin), which is the foundation of all other _kata_ in _Gōjū-ryū_ karate. _Sanchin_ puts a lot of emphasis on precise movements, breathing, stance, and internal strength.
> 
> In my head, Takahashi starts out teaching Zuko [_akido_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido), which according to Wikipedia is ‘an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attackers from injury… According to the founder's philosophy, the primary goal in the practice of aikido is to overcome oneself instead of cultivating violence or aggressiveness’. As evil and good are always at war inside Zuko, I thought it a fitting starting point for him. However, she also mixes in some moves from [_karate_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate), [_nanquan_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanquan), [_hapkido_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapkido), and [_taekwondo_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taekwondo) martial arts styles as well.
> 
> [Avatar Szeto](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Szeto) was the Fire Avatar before Yangchen.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own _A:TLA_ , Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, or Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. If you think you see any direct or adapted quotes from these pieces of media, they're intentional. Anything else, unless noted, is unintended coincidence.


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